Death penalty call for accused Australian child sex predator Peter Scully in Philippines

Prosecutors in the Philippines have revealed they will call for the death penalty to be re-introduced in the case of alleged Australian child sex predator and 'dark web' mastermind Peter Scully.

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Peter Scully (left) arrives at the Cagayan De Oro court handcuffed to another inmate on his first day of his trial.Credit:Kate Geraghty

Chief prosecutor Jaime Umpa told Fairfax Media that the 52 year-old Scully's deeds were the most shocking cases of child abuse and trafficking officials had seen.

Prosecutors allege that Scully directed a video involving torture and horrific injuries to an 18-month-old baby and participated in many debased acts against children. Prosecutors said he was for several years the mastermind of a worldwide syndicate selling extreme videos of child sex and torture.

On Tuesday, Scully was led handcuffed into a court in the southern Philippines to face the first six of 75 charges that could see him become the first person to received the death penalty in the Philippines in more than a decade. During the hearing he laughed and joked with his co-accused.

While naked and masked, one of Scully's two Philippine girlfriends is alleged to have inflicted the pain on the baby girl in a video called "Daisy's Destruction" that Scully is alleged to have sold to internet clients for up to $10,000.

In it, the baby girl is tied by her feet upside down while she is sexually assaulted.The girlfriend also allegedly bashed the baby,who survived and has been returned to the care of her parents, but remains deeply traumatized and becomes hysterical when memory of her abuse is triggered.

Prosecutors will allege another 11-year-old girl whose body was found in a shallow grave under a house rented by Scully was repeatedly sexually abused by him and then strangled.

A police officer stands on the overpass connecting two malls in Cagayan De Oro where two of Peter Scully's victims were allegedly groomed by his girlfriend. Credit:Kate Geraghty

Eight other girl victims aged up to 13 at the time of the alleged offences are being held in witness protection while Scully pleads not guilty in court hearings that are expected to take years to be completed in the Philippines' log-jammed judicial system.

Scully has decided to contest the charges - putting his alleged victims through the ordeal of testifying in court - despite repeatedly telling Philippine media last year he was "remorseful" for what he had done to children.

People ride past the Cagayan De Oro City Jail where Australian man Peter Scully is being held. Credit:Kate Geraghty

Wearing a yellow prison T-shirt and runners, Scully looked tense and ignored questions from Fairfax Media as he was led into a special court set up in Cagayan de Oro's city hall on Tuesday.

Prosecutors allege that Scully was the white male person, whose face was pixilated or hidden, captured in videos forcing children to commit depraved acts. Many of the investigators, journalists and officials who have watched the videos have been brought to tears.

A section of one of the prosecutors documents regarding Australian man Peter Scully. Credit:Kate Geraghty

"They were the most devastating thing I have ever seen," said Ruby Malanog, who is one of two lawyers prosecuting Scully.

"I cried when I was watching them ... in fact I feel like crying just now while talking about it," she said. "It was hard to believe what I was seeing ... that somebody could do those things to children."

Peter Scully inside the Cagayan De Oro court handcuffed to another inmate on his first day of his trial.Credit:Kate Geraghty

On the eve of Tuesday's hearing Mr Umpa, the chief prosecutor of northern Mindanao region, called for the reintroduction of the death penalty in the Philippines so that Scully, a Melbourne businessman, could be executed.

"If I had my choice it would be death for Scully. I want it to happen," Mr Umpa told Fairfax Media in Cagayan de Oro, a city of one million people where Scully allegedly lured impoverished children from shopping malls.

"We have to send a strong message to others that if they come to the Philippines and torture and abuse our children in this way they will be investigated with the full force of the law and executed," he said.

Mr Umpa said unless the death penalty was reintroduced prosecutors would push in the first hearings for Scully to be given the maximum sentence of life imprisonment for human trafficking and 10 years for each of the five sexual abuse charges, meaning Scully could be jailed for up to 100 years.

But under current Philippine procedures, he would be released after serving 30 years and then deported to Australia.

"We don't believe this is sufficient for these crimes that were committed," Mr Umpa said.

Scully showed no emotion and looked away when Fairfax Media told him about the call which came only days after tough-talking Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte reiterated that he wants the death penalty returned for "heinous" crimes, including rape and murder. The country abolished it in 2006 following fierce opposition from the Catholic church, the religion of 80 per cent of Filipinos.

Mr Duterte, who was swept into office at May elections pledging to wipe out crime, has overseen a bloody crackdown on illegal drug pushers that has left more than 3500 Filipinos dead. Scully, who arrived in the Philippines in 2011 after fleeing fraud and deception charges in Melbourne, has been portraying himself as victim while on remand in Cagayan de Oro City jail, telling his lawyers that he was sexually abused by a priest when he was growing up in Victoria.

He was arrested last year on human trafficking charges. Jail warden Ferdiand Pontillo told Fairfax Media that Scully complains about conditions in a chronically overcrowded facility, wanting to be pampered with luxury food and a mobile telephone so he can make international calls. "He wants the same conditions as there are in Australian jails but this is not Australia," he said.

Scully refused to comment to Fairfax Media at the jail built to accommodate 350 prisoners, but which now has 1840. Scully's sister , who lives in Australia, has complained to the jail about the conditions he is being held under.

The first six charges that Scully will face relate to the alleged abduction and sexual abuse of two teenage girls in Cagayan de Oro in September 2014.

Prosecutors will allege the girls were lured to a house on the promise of food by one of Scully's girlfriends where they were given alcohol before they were raped by Scully and forced to commit sex acts in front of cameras.

When the girls tried to escape Scully forced them to dig a grave under the house where they were told they would be buried, Ms Malanog, the prosecutor, told Fairfax Media before the hearing began. When the girls escaped after five days they ran terrified to their parent's home, Ms Malanog said.

Mr Umpa said Scully faces a further 69 charges filed by the Department of Justice in Manila that relate to his alleged business making videos for so-called "dark web" clients, a reference to websites where server information, including IP addresss are hidden.

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A murder charge has been absorbed into a human trafficking charge. Scully's activities in the Philippines have been linked to Melbourne university student Matthew David Graham, who was sentenced to 15 years jail in the Victorian County Court in March this year.

A judge described Graham as being involved in a "twisted and evil life" in "the dark shadows of the cyber world".

Lindsay Murdoch is a three-time winner of the Walkley Award, Australia's top award for journalistic excellence. Lindsay is a former correspondent based in Singapore, Jakarta and Darwin. In 1999 he covered the tumultuous events in East Timor, and in 2003 he covered the Iraq war while embedded with US Marines.